


Back on the Map

by returntosaturn



Series: Back on the Map [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Airport meeting, F/M, Fluff, Modern AU, Non-magical AU, Tina finding herself, Traveling, newtina-centric, tina-centria
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-16 03:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10563015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: He gave a breathy chuckle. “Yes. Nerve-wracking if you put it that way. Just promise me you’ll start the flow of oxygen through your own mask before helping me.”He flushed red immediately after he said it, eyes rolling away from hers, looking slightly mortified.But she laughed, and it seemed to relieve a bit of his stress if the way his eyes roamed timidly, quickly over her face were any indication.“I will. I promise.”// Tina decides to journey out by herself, and stumbles into something and someone unexpected at the airport. Non-magical, modern AU.





	1. Chapter 1

“Ok. Ok. I’m gonna be fine. I’ll be late if you don’t let go.”

Finally, she was able to gasp a breath when Queenie released her, bleary eyed. 

“I’m just gonna miss you, OK? You’ve never been gone before.”

Which was precisely why she had to do this. She reached around for the handle of her rolling suitcase, pulling it closer. “I’ll call you from the hotel. It’ll probably be midnight.”

“I’ll wait up.”

Tina nodded, and pulled her younger sister in one last time for good measure. This would be the last time they’d see each other face to face for six months. Six months overseas, by herself, touring Europe. She had felt a certainty about it since she booked the first ticket to London. But now, realizing that she’d be away from the person she had hardly spent one day without in her entire life, she found herself blinking away tears.

“OK. I really have to go,” she croaked, pulling back and pretending to double-check her carry on for her passport. “Love you. Talk to you soon. See you…later.”

She threw a wave and hurried inside the airport through the automatic doors marked ‘Departures’.

Obtaining her boarding pass and relieving herself of her suitcase were easy enough, but the lines at the security checkpoint were long and offered too much time for thinking. She couldn’t think. Honestly, she couldn’t turn back now if she wanted to, so it was irrelevant. But still, all the times she’d been told how hair-brained this entire trip was rolled through her mind there in that line.

Director Graves had asked if she was sure, because Tina Goldstein never took vacation, not even a sick day. So when she’d plunked herself down in his office and asked for a six-month break, he blinked and asked rather bluntly if she’d misplaced her mind. Queenie raved for weeks after the ticket was booked that she _‘could not go over there by herself when she could hardly be counted on to remember to eat dinner.’_ Tina had just shaken her head and insisted this was it. 

She loved her sister, and she loved her job. And she was fiercely devoted to both, and had never given a second thought that she could possibly give too much of herself to either. But after the fiasco of the Barebone children, things had not been the same. 

She’d been disbatched to their residence after a neighbor had made a noise complaint. She did not expect to find a boy in his mid-teens hunched on his bed cradling a badly-bruised arm with his sister cowering in corner nearby. She was not surprised, however, when the mother insisted the bruises were caused by bullying at school. Nor was she surprised when the State did little to help the children’s situation, insisting Mary Lou Barebone was more than capable of caring for them, given her lengthy and positive track record as a foster parent. It was the same procedure she and Queenie had gone through. No one cared about the kids; fostering just a put a roof over their heads until they were old enough to provide one for themselves, equipped and capable or not. No one listened to their complaints, they just reminded them to be grateful. But there was nothing to be grateful about when your caretaker lied to further themselves at your expense.

There was nothing grateful in Credence’s eyes while tears dripped over his narrow nose when he looked up at her. Nothing grateful in silently pleading with a perfect stranger to be taken away. Nothing to be grateful about in not being wanted.

When she’d been unable to do anything more about removing those children from Barebone’s care, she’d been forced to confront the unquenchable empathy within herself, and how this empathy almost always led her to fault. She couldn’t help everyone. She couldn’t find resolution to every problem, as much as she desired to. And once this was clear, New York City started to feel like a suffocating, stifling place and less and less like home.

She’d devoted herself to raising her sister when they were still quite young once it was clear that their slew of foster parents couldn’t be bothered to. After aging out, she’d thrown herself into studying and training for her career, determined that she’d make a difference, bring pride to the legacy that ended with the two of them. There had never been time for herself, and while she’d been content to let that slide, she’d now reached an impasse that left her searching for that confident, zealous young girl she used to be.

On the other side of security, she grabbed a bite to eat and browsed a magazine kiosk before selecting a thick book that would more than satiate her through the eight hours she’d spend sucked into a metal tube. Listless and suddenly self-conscious in the wide hollows of JFK, she found her gate and took a seat.

The surrounding area was relatively empty, save for the man seated near the wall, hogging the only plug in the near vicinity. A bulky camera was tethered to one outlet, left to rest on the ground without a care that anyone might come by and snatch it. His laptop computer was plugged into the other, balanced evenly on his knees, and the only sound in this uninhabited cavern of the airport was the click-clack of his fingers rapid-fire on the keyboard. The boxy adapters that accompanied each electronic told her he wasn’t a native. He was headed home. So she approached with slight timidity and maybe a bit too much awkwardness to whisper, “Excuse me…”

He didn’t flinch. 

Under his mop of coppery hair, she noticed his earbuds pressed firmly into each ear, and now she could hear the thin, distant sounds of whatever he was listening to. It wasn’t music. An audiobook? A lecture?

“Excuse me,” she tried again, louder.

Nothing.

“Hey.” 

Her New York roots got the better of her and she reached to tap a finger against the edge of his screen.

He sprung to life, computer teetering and yanked his earbuds free. “So sorry…” He blinked up at her, fringe hanging carelessly in front of wide green eyes.

She looked on, half-amused, and held her phone charger aloft. “Can I use that?” She nodded for the outlet.

“Oh, sure. Sorry, I wasn’t…” He shifted the computer off his lap, and crouched to the floor to untangle his cords where they reached the wall. She watched him test his camera battery, wind up his wares, and tuck everything away into seemingly specific pockets of an overlarge, overstuffed backpack.

Finally, he unfolded himself and gestured for her to have at it. 

“Thanks,” she muttered before taking a seat at the end of the row of chairs nearest his.

He resumed his typing but didn’t replace his earbuds.

She texted Queenie to assure her that everything was alright, that she was waiting at the gate, and once she’d done so, turned off her phone to preserve it’s life.

This was to be a trip of limited connectivity. No wondering about how things were at the station. No questioning if Queenie had made it to work on time. She was going to find her way out of the weeds, no matter how challenging it would prove. Two weeks in London would turn into two weeks in Paris, and two weeks in Paris would take her to the end of her plans and the point in the journey where she’d be left to her own devices of transportation. She was going to plan as she went, take the time to look and listen and experience. Not rush. The whole idea of it was terrifying, if she was honest.

She glanced up to the man again, noticing how his clear green eyes reflected the glow of his computer screen. How it set his freckles into relief.

“Do you live in London?” she asked before she could talk herself out of it.

His chin jerked up like a student not expecting to be called upon. “Sorry?” 

“Do you live in London?” she repeated, grinning wryly to herself. Who was this guy?

“Oh. Yes. Part of the time, anyway.” He didn’t elaborate but seemed to wait for her next question. 

“It’s my first time visiting. My first time outside of New England, really.”

“Ah. Well I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself.” He gave a polite, if uncomfortable, nod.

“Yes,” was all she could say.

This was weird. She was in an empty airport terminal, talking to a perfect stranger. Her pilgrimage to find herself would of course begin in the most unusual way, she mused. She couldn’t be uncomfortable about talking to locals, she’d known that. But perhaps chatting it up while the guy was just trying to get some work done before the plane ride was a bit intrusive.

She glanced up to him again through her peripheral, chewing at her lip. He’d gone back to his work, clicking away on the keys again. She watched his jaw tighten, and he clacked out a few more words before turning his attention back to her suddenly.

“You should try the Indian food. Any Indian food, really. I can recommend some places.” It tumbled out as if he’d been bursting to say it.

“Thanks, that sounds nice.” 

But he didn’t continue. He smiled politely and turned back to his screen. Was that supposed to be the end of the conversation? Was she really that off-putting that he had to trick her out of talking? 

A few more people began to gather; businessmen, a family traveling home. She turned back to her acquaintance and he was typing away again. He quirked his mouth into a grimace and gave a blustering sigh before he folded the laptop closed and tugged his headphones free from their port. She leaned over, unplugging her phone charger from the wall, accidently brushing his hand in the process when he reached for his own cable.

They both stammered through apologies, and she shoved her accouterments away in her carry-on before standing.

“Well, thanks for the chat.”

“You should also visit…”

They spoke at the same time, and then could do nothing but laugh together, shy and uncertain.

“I was saying you should wander off to Oxford, while you’re in the area,” he says. “Its lovely.”

“Thank you, I will.”

She wanted to come up with a sufficient way to end their odd little meeting, but it was still thirty minutes til they’d be able to board and she couldn’t very well move to another seat. That’d be rude. So she sat beside him, this time a chair apart, and put her bag in the space between them.

“What were you working on, if I can ask?”

He blushed to the tips of his ears, ducking his chin. “A book. I’m an ecologist, to put it simply.”

“Oh. I’m…not even sure what an ecologist does, if I’m being honest.” She felt entirely lame, next to this young, attractive man that was obviously well-established in his field, whatever it was, while she’d just voluntarily given up her promotion to Lieutenant to travel the world on a whim.

His smile quirked. “Unfortunately, I’ve worked in a great number of areas within the field, so it’s a bit difficult to describe. For now, I’m compiling research on animals birthed into captivity and the effects on their overall psychology compared to young animals in the wild. But…it’s in its earliest draft at best.”

He said it all in practically one breath, both proud and a little bashful. “But…it’s not the only area I’m focused in. I’ve been traveling the United States, which provides the largest array of animal species in captivity, but my sole purpose isn’t…Goodness, I’m not boring you, am I?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Not at all.”

“I’m sorry, I do tend to babble on.” He looked genuinely concerned that he’d put her off, and turned away to idly tug his carry-on closer.

“It’s fine,” she insisted. “You got a name, by the way?”

“Newt…Newton…Newt…” He explained off her amused smirk. “Call me Newt.”

Her lips prickled at the feel of the new, unusual name. “Newt.”

His eyes twinkled in the white fluorescents, and he seemed to lose himself for a moment or two, smiling, teeth and all, at the carpet and trying to hide it with a duck of his head.

“I’m Tina,” she reciprocated, watching his loose, easy posture. Feline, almost, in the way his shoulders moved while he checked the outside pockets of his bag, for what she couldn’t guess.

“Lovely to meet you…Tina.” He paused, turning to lock eyes with her for only a second or two, nodding in affirmation, as if he genuinely cared about learning her name. Her simple, boring name. 

Something pricked to life in her chest, and she cleared her throat against the feeling.

An announcement rang, mumbled, bored, and altogether overly-familiar to the young attendant at the gate. Everyone began to huddle like racers at a shotgun start.

“We’re boarding,” she pointed out lamely.

“Yes.” He looked over his shoulder at the mass of passengers. “I typically will wait until the final call.”

“Its my first time flying,” she admitted.

His eyes were on her again, or rather on her shoulder. “Nervous?” He grinned cheekily.

“Not really. If you can get your mind off the fact that your hundred of miles above ground in a metal tube crammed in like sardines around hundreds of other people.”

He gave a breathy chuckle. “Yes. Nerve-wracking if you put it that way. Just promise me you’ll start the flow of oxygen through your own mask before helping me.”

He flushed red immediately after he said it, eyes rolling away from hers, looking slightly mortified. 

But she laughed, and it seemed to relieve a bit of his stress if the way his eyes roamed timidly, quickly over her face were any indication. 

“I will. I promise.”

“Of course it’s a very slim chance that we’d be placed under those circumstances…” he muttered softly, staring intensely at the collar of her shirt.

Passengers began to form some semblance of an organized line and were being filtered through to the jetbridge. 

“It was lovely talking with you, Tina,” he said finally, standing and hefting his backpack onto his slim shoulder.

“Yes. Nice to meet you. Have a good flight.”

“You too.”

She hurried off to stand somewhere in the back of the line that was still more of a mass of chatting and scrambling passengers than it was a line. She fiddled with her bag, finding her boarding pass and filtering in somewhere between the group of high school students and their chaperones and a married couple on their honeymoon. 

Her seat was at the center of the row, squeezed tight into the middle. He lucky day, she thought wryly, finding her book in her bag and settling in to tune out the scramble of the flight crew and their passengers.

A broad shouldered man in a tired-looking button down came for the aisle seat, buckling in without pretense or greeting, and it was now that she was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic. Perhaps once they were in the air and on their way, things would settle in. But now, while she tried to scoot over in her limited space, she wondered how anybody could deign to travel like this.

“E-Excuse me…I’ve got the window seat.”

The familiar lilted voice had her snapping her head up as Mr. Button Down stood to allow its owner to pass. 

Knees and thighs and slim hips shuffled in, throwing a smile down at her while he tried to maneuver.

“Hello again,” he said, goofy grin set to a better light by the afternoon sun filtering through the unshaded window.

“Hi.” She tried not to sound too enthusiastic. “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.”

Apparently it was too intimate a phrase to be uttered while Button Down was in such close proximity and still buckling himself back in, because Newt blushed all over again and glanced away shyly. He hugged his computer and a worn, paper bound journal to his lap.

“Indeed we do,” he muttered.

She wasn’t sure if was jitters about the impending flight, or the idea that their party now held a third, disgruntled companion that brought her to silence. She opened her new book and began, again tuning out the chaos of departure around them.

“Do you like to read?” she heard him ask after she’d gotten through several pages.

She lowered the book to peek over at him. “Oh. Yes.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Now it was her turn to be embarrassed by his studying look, wide-eyed and watching as if he’d be journaling her every feature and flaw in that battered notebook.

“Well, of course. Otherwise you wouldn’t be…” He shook his head. His eyes flitted away again in a move that was more self-conscious than before, like he was kicking himself for even speaking. She tried to follow his gaze in an attempt to quell the gracelessness their interactions had been comprised of up to this point.

“Some people don’t,” she said, feeling wholly stupid at making such an obvious point. “Some people read because they think it makes them look smart.”

His eyes were back on her, something distant and sad there she hadn’t seen before, and she had the idea they were no longer talking about books and hobbies and the like.

“Yes. Some people do,” was all he said in reply. She watched him, let him study her openly for a moment or two more, even as her eyes jerked back down to the book in her lap. 

A flight attendant ran through a mumbled list of safety procedures and then announced their take off. Tina tried not to think too hard about the length of this flight, and how long they’d be essentially hovering above ground and how far. Newt, to her dismay, was all too eager to watch the entire process out of their double-paned window.

She held tight, clenching her stomach against the weightless feeling in her limbs once the wheels left the ground. Thankfully the sensation lasted only a second or two. She must’ve been grimacing when he looked back to her a moment later, because she felt his bare hand grip her forearm. 

“You’re perfectly fine. Smooth sailing from here.” He whispered it, but it was close in her ear over the new roar of engines and gears filling the cabin.

She pried her eyes open long enough to glimpse his smile before he turned again for the window. She all but gawked at the place where his hand was still at her arm, and her insides somersaulted for entirely new reasons when his thumb twitched against her skin. It was involuntary, she promised herself. He wasn’t actually…

He swung back to her, impish and proud. “Look,” he whispered, inviting her closer to the window to watch the sunlight slant through the clouds from a new angle. The City below had become a model of itself, not so busy from this angle, not so cramped. Beautiful and sprawling in a way she’d never thought to see it.

“Its not so bad,” he insisted, leaning back into his seat. She followed suit.

“No. I guess not. Not so scary now.” What she’d meant to say faltered when he removed his hand casually, covering the computer in his lap once more.

There was little conversation to be made as the monotony of the flight took over, and she fell back into her book, while he typed away when they were able to move freely about the cabin once more, lost to his headphones. Their other seatmate napped silently.

An hour or so in, once the sun had dipped away and she needed the overhead light to read, her eyes grew weary and the book twitched in her hands when she dozed off, before she managed to catch herself and blink awake. She read the same sentence over and over, losing track of the story that was proving not too gripping in the first place. It typically wasn’t hard to force herself out of sleep, on stake outs and long nights on the clock. But the buzz of the engines and the monochrome of the book’s pages lulled her to a state she couldn’t ignore.

What seemed a short time later, her body jolted itself awake, assaulted by the blue glow of a computer screen at eye level, spinning with the default screensaver. It was then that she realized exactly how painful sleeping on planes was, if the ache in her back was any indication, and exactly whose shoulder she’d fallen asleep on.

She couldn’t make a move to correct her posture or rub at the kink in her side, because his own cheek was pressed against her hair, his little snores breathing out flat and settled.

She couldn’t think long on it, for there wasn’t much else to do but settle back into sleep and let it happen, let the plane take its course. They could mutter their apologies on the other side.

-

When she woke the next time, it was to the smell of processed blueberries and the too-loud, too-chipper voices of the flight crew sounding about the cabin.

She sat up, groaning at the twinge in her back, rubbing her eyes awake.

“Hello,” Newt managed around a mouthful of pre-packaged muffin. He squared out his shoulders, seemingly shaking off the weight of her, and gestured at a second small breakfast on his tray table.

“I asked for tea. I wasn’t sure if you were a coffee person, but you should educate yourself about a proper cup of tea, after all. Not that this is proper by any means. Still, tea is for the soul.”

She muttered her thanks and tore open the cellophane around the muffin.

“I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I should’ve been more aware.”

“Not at all,” he said, taking a sip of tea from its paper cup. “It was…”

_My pleasure? Not a problem? Perfect?_

There was nothing appropriate to say. Not between two people who’d hardly just met, and at an airport of all places. Whatever this was, it wasn’t an insignificant thrill to start off her trip, at least that’s not what she wanted it to end as. She didn’t know what exactly she did want, but it wasn’t parting ways at the gate and going about their ways. 

She could find no remedy, and suspected that he couldn’t either, as he didn’t finish his sentence and the moments ticked on into silence until the crew came around to gather the trappings of their small breakfast.

She concentrated hard on her book that had fallen to her feet during sleep, bending the cover. He watched the window, staring into the endless sea of slow-changing clouds.

Twenty minutes—or an eternity—later, the crew bustled about again preparing their landing. When the wheels hit the ground, she gripped the armrest between their chairs, careful about touching him or indicating in any way that the standard tremor of the plane had startled her. 

When they reached the gate, passengers virtually threw off their belts and reached for their cell phones, text tones and the clamor of voices acting as the signal that this long, droning arc of the journey was over.

She chanced a look at Newt, who was sitting patient and unmoving, head bowed.

Button Down stood as soon as able to exit their row and disappear in the tight string of people searching for their luggage in bins. Tina made to move into the open space, standing to stretch her limbs and put distance into this awkward unraveling of their company.

Once there was room enough, she shouldered her carry-on and turned for one last look.

“Thanks for…the recommendations. I’ll be sure to see Oxford, and the Indian food sounds good right about now.” She tried to sound indifferent, but it had probably fallen flat.

“The what? Oh, yes. You’re welcome.” His face was full of emotion she couldn’t read, couldn’t take the time to, eyes filtering over her again in that same studying manner. 

She gave a smile, a polite little nod, and slipped into the flow of passengers waiting to exit.

He didn’t follow.

This was the end. Better to leave it this way, anyways. It was silly, it was reckless, and she’d started this wild-brained scheme to get out on her _own_ in the first place. She didn’t need her heart mucking things up for her, again. 

On the other side of the jetway, she paused to dig for her passport, searching in the pockets of her bag longer than comfort would allow. She cursed to herself, finally plucking it from the bottom, and when she looked up again, he was there.

He looked terribly worried, bronzy hair falling over his forehead, staring holes into the polished floor.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry,” he started. “How would you feel if I…introduced you to that Indian restaurant in person?”

She gaped for a few seconds, heart clenching painfully against something new and untested and altogether bewildering. 

“I’d like that,” she managed, giving a smile. The look of sheer relief and delight that spread over his freckled features reminded her somehow of the feeling of being home.


	2. Chapter 2

The curry and spiced potatoes and rice filled her to happiness and guarded her against the chilly evening air. They wandered off for Westminster, and on the way she was introduced to the whirl and clockwork scuffle of the Underground. 

Somewhere in between meeting her at her hotel once their shared taxi had dropped her, Newt had donned a blue pea coat with a dated silhouette. Among the drab and forgettable color schemes his neighbors wore, he was a wild bird. He took in the way the lights of the city twinkled off the Thames with wide, watching eyes as if this was the first time he has ever seen this simple phenomenon. And Tina found herself just as intrigued with observing him as they walked, as she was with soaking in this new rumble and hurry of a city that didn’t seem so unfamiliar from her home.

They stood in the wake of Big Ben’s echoing toll, and she reveled in the vibration that rippled through her from head to toe. She observed the ominous shadows painted along the Abbey in the evening light, and when she turned to Newt, his smile waned from affectionate to uncertain before he blinked away.

The London Eye was her idea, and it was the first time she saw his British sensibilities get the better of him when he insisted that while it provided a beautiful view of the city, it was a terribly tourist-y thing to do, and made no indication that he was a native to the attendant that took their tickets.

“Its so beautiful up here,” she breathed when they reached the top of the wheel, lucky enough to have their own capsule as the crowd of passengers dwindled with the late hour.

“Quite lovely,” he said beside her, gazing down upon the familiar landscape before their gazes leveled to one another, silent and tender consideration playing between them.

He ducked his chin before he spoke again. “You can tell me to mind my own business but…Why did you choose to travel by yourself, and for so long? Surely you must have someone who could’ve accompanied you.”

She nodded. “Yes, I have a sister, but…I needed to do this on my own.”

“I see…” he said, giving a knowing nod. “Siblings are a challenge.”

“No. Not like that. I love Queenie, very much. But…things…other things were…not quite right,” she explained nebulously. “I just felt like this the only way to cure it.”

Silence stretched and she could practically feel him reading her, wondering about where she’d come from and how she’d ended up lost and clutching a boarding pass for London like her compass when she’d never even embarked out of the cluster of states surrounding her.

“We just haven’t had opportunity to get out much. My sister and I, that is. We’ve had to rely on each other a lot, and there really was no such thing as a vacation when we were growing up. I just…I needed a break.”

It was better put simply. As accommodating and kind as Newt had been, now was not the time to douse him with her long-storied life that was quite uneventful in most respects.

She wondered for a moment if he were trying to pry, and her defenses armed themselves for deployment. But she supposed it was natural to be curious, just as she was curious about him, and he was letting her tell her story as she liked, so she couldn’t be too affronted. 

“I see,” he repeated. “Have you always lived in New York City?”

“We moved around a bit,” she said, thankful for the change in subject. “Mostly in New York, sometimes Massachusetts.”

“Oh. Your family traveled?”

“Uh, no, not really,” she said, trying to laugh the tension off, glancing up to him uncertainly. He stared back, steadfast green eyes focused and endlessly patient as she tried to work out her excuse. 

“We…Our parents died when we were young,” she finally ground out, dropping her gaze and working against a knot tightening in her throat.

"You were adopted?"

"Um..." She turned her face towards her shoulder, away from him, unwilling to allow him exposure to the emotion that crossed her face. "No. We weren't."

He did not respond. And while she tried to tamp down that familiar, ill feeling in her stomach, she found herself wishing he'd at least apologize or touch her shoulder in condolence or any number of typical responses she'd gotten over the years that would give her reason to tell him exactly how presumptuous he was to meddle like this and end the precarious, beautiful, vulnerable dance they'd started only hours ago in the airport terminal. She did not do weakness well. For twenty-seven years she had successfully ignored it. Not conquered, but ignored. Ignoring was practical. It let her focus on Queenie and work and paying rent and electric bills. Feeling asked her for too much.

The air was unyielding and now somehow thin around them and all the blame she harbored seethed to the surface in one quick wave. If she'd kept her mouth shut in New York instead of being so confident in pushing the limits of her comfort zone all at once. If she'd just denied his offer for dinner, she wouldn't be subjecting him to her mess and she'd be left to herself where things were easier. 

She angled her face downwards, trying inconspicuously to lift a hand to her eyes. She swiped at her face, tucking her hair behind her ear to play the motion off, summoning her best attempt at swallowing it all back down before he could take notice. 

He _did not_ need to be privy to this twenty-year-long heartbreak.

"Um...I really don’t want…" she breathed, but he was quick.

He ducked his head in that bashful way of his and tugged a rumpled handkerchief from his pocket.

The offered kindness hung limp between then, until Tina reached slow and careful to pluck it from his grasp.

She dabbed at her eyes, now somehow smiling into the clean cotton before issuing a watery laugh. "Why would any man in the twenty-first century carry a handkerchief?" she sniffled, half-amused. 

The words aloud made her laugh all over again, more of hiccupped sob as she tried to steel herself, and she was acutely aware of Newt watching her with some curious, unreadable expression.

"In case I'm thickheaded enough to make a woman cry her first evening in London," he mumbled diffidently, grimacing at his hands in his lap where his fingers worked at the skin around his nails.

"Do you take many girls out on their first evening in London?" It was an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but Newt remained unmoved. Sufficiently mollified for now, she balled the pocket-square in one palm, looking to watch him shake his head.

"No not many..." His eyes had darted to her hands now, and she suspected it wasn't because she'd all but commandeered his offered kerchief.

She held her ground, easing the tears and the memories away, back into their little corner, watching the lights on the river below return to sharp focus. 

This place truly was lovely. A whirring city, still rooted in the time that Manhattan had all but left behind in favor of the new and modern. 

"Thank you," she croaked after several silent minutes, several rounds of the wheel.

"What on Earth for?"

There was a good six inches between them on the narrow bench set at the center of the capsule, but she could certainly recall where his hand had rested on her arm only hours ago, how warm he’d been when she’d blinked awake to the smell of hot tea.

"You've been so kind, Newt,” she nearly whispered, dropping her chin to win his gaze.

He looked up to her beneath blonde lashes and coppery fringe, eyes sparking in the glow of the city around and below then, somehow boyish but for the steely set of his jaw. His expression read that she couldn't possibly be telling the truth.

"My sister and I...” she began, conscious of the quiver in her voice and working to stop it. “We don't have many people in our lives we can call friends. We've made our own way, always relying on each other. I could've managed the city on my own, but it would've been exceedingly more boring without you."

It fell flat of what she had really wanted to say, but he seemed charmed by it anyways, smiling disbelieving at the floor.

"Well...I share the sentiment," he almost whispered, giving just a hint of a smile.

Before she could allow herself to think too long on it, she took the space between them and moved her hand across the few inches needed to cover his own, planted firmly to his knee. He twitched slightly, snapping his gaze to her and down again but allowing the contact.

It was a simple, innocuous touch, but she hoped it conveyed her lost words well enough. 

When they'd made one final round and it came time to exit the car, both pairs of hands found their respective coat pockets and remained safely plunged inside.

The walk back to her hotel was silent except for murmured directions and apologies from Newt when he bumped her elbow with his own on the way up from the Tube.

At the revolving door that marked the entrance, they gave matching sighs of resignation, eyes flitting to each other’s, and away again several times before he finally rummaged up the courage to speak first.

"It's been..."

"Hasn't it?" she huffed, and watched his gaze follow the curl of steam her breath made in the night air before returning to land emphatically on her face. His eyes widened marginally in some silent realization and he was gone again to himself, staring the concrete between their feet.

“Tina,” he began, concentrating. "Do you think I could...Could I call on you tomorrow?" His eyes were both hopeful and somehow youthful when they found hers again. 

It was an entirely proper thing to say, the phrasing of a gentleman, antiquated but no less charming. 

She smiled, settling her hip, rooting herself. "I suppose I could use a proper tour guide."

His blonde lashes fluttered, head down but his smile spearing through the lamplight glow. He swayed from foot to foot in what she could only assume was a moderate, meek show of eagerness. "Very well. How does eight o'clock sound? I can promise a full English breakfast, and tea as well."

"That sounds lovely."

He nodded sharply, still grinning proudly when he looked back to her, and something told her she should be honored to have witnessed it at all. "Goodnight, Tina. I'll see you in the morning."

"Yes." She sounded too breathless, too smitten as he gave her one last look over his shoulder, shoving his hands into his coat pockets and sauntering off in his crooked little walk down the pavement.

Her room was fiercely cold, and the radiator hissed and moaned in its vocation. But lingering adrenaline kept her warm enough not to be too bothered. 

When she shed her well-wrinkled traveling clothes for her pajamas, a lump in her pants pocket caught her attention, and his crumpled handkerchief blossomed from its hiding spot.

Carefully, she picked it up from the carpet to study the way the cobalt blue N twined the gold S, his initials embroidered at its corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks [chaseyesterdays](http://chaseyesterdays.tumblr.com) for beta-reading and encouraging this mess.
> 
> ( [allscissorsallpaper](http://allscissorsallpaper.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you like. )


	3. Chapter 3

The morning came blue-grey and streaming through the thinly-curtained window, and she discovered the radiator had flicked off at some time during the night, leaving the room frigid and causing her skin and muscles to tingle awake painfully under the hot water of her shower.

She chose a plain, long sleeved t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and brushed hastily through her hair before spinning into her coat and winding a scarf about her neck. She was already late, but that was typical. This was the first time she’d had the saving grace of time change and jet lag to blame.

He was waiting on the pavement outside, bright eyed as if he had been awake for hours, in the same blue coat and shrouded in a yellow and black scarf, the tip of his pink nose and his wind-reddened cheeks peeking out when she joined him.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” he chirped, starting an easy pace in a direction she assumed he knew.

“Well enough. Its cold up there, but I’m used to cold.” Thankfully he didn’t make to expound upon her comment, taking it for its face value, not a harken back to that period of time she and Queenie had shivered under a blanket in their first apartment, just aged out, heat-less and jobless.

He led them through a line of bustling market stands, all manner of vegetables and spices and fruits sprawling down a crowded city block. He purchased a sack of apples, bananas, and a carton of fresh eggs while Tina peered at the stacks upon stacks of sweets at the next booth.

His flat was atop a seven-story walk up, but she took no mind. Their apartment at home was on the eighth floor, so she breezed up the steps side-by-side with him, noting humorously each of his gangling steps that resembled a giraffe’s gait. 

The flat was tiny, and crammed with all manner of things which caught her off guard only for only a moment before she took it all in. Plenty of light was let in by a row of windows at the rear. The sitting room contained only a dated, worse-for-wear sofa, its ugliness shrouded by a thick brown throw. A desk—that might’ve been an antique dining table at some point—took up the rest of the small sitting space, cluttered with half-emptied tea cups, teetering stacks of books, a gutted film camera, a slew of loose leaf drawings, all crowded around an antique but well cared for typewriter. 

Where a television should’ve been, twin bookcases overflowing with books stacked at all angles flanked a fireplace that was seemingly too grandiose for such a tiny place. At the far end of the apartment, where the windows let in the diffused morning sunlight, a long row of plants of all kinds lined the windowsills, and a short set of stairs slanted up and around the corner and—she assumed—led to a bedroom. 

The kitchen was cramped, signified so by the combination washer-dryer shoved in the place a dishwasher would go, and more remains of abandoned teacups scattered the counters. 

He seemed mildly embarrassed, rushing to wrangle the dishes into his sink with a loud clatter. She didn’t really take notice, instead searching for details in the quaint clutter of the room, cataloging each in her growing mental file about him and what his life was lent to.

He rummaged around in the fridge while she paced the room, tilting a book from the shelf to glance at the cover, reading the destinations on the dozens of boarding passes and train tickets pinned to the wall above the couch, framed around a large print of a world map that glittered with tacks and rainbows of colored thread.

The only framed artifacts were two matching diplomas, one displaying accomplishments in a Bachelor’s of Science in Zoology, and the second boasting a Masters’ with a focus in Conservation. 

There were photographs tacked into the plaster too; animals of all species, and though she could recognize most all of them, the photos carried some sort of quiet observation and carefulness in the angles. 

Tucked underneath, plastered over with the other prints, there were old polaroids and corner-store prints of _people_. A woman, with her arms around a young boy Tina recognized as Newt himself, face a little rounder, hair a little neater. The woman was certainly his mother, and in another photo the same woman stroked at the breast of a bright blue parrot, lips poised as if she were cooing at it. There were more, of young Newt and another boy, who was blonde and obviously older, but with the same slanting jawline. There was one in particular, badly lit and overexposed from flash, of Newt as a teenager, the other boy probably closer to his twenties, looking practically perturbed to be posing together on whatever occasion this was.

Her hand brushed across a singular photo of a young woman, cocoa-colored skin and a dark wave of curls, before Newt cleared his throat from the kitchen.

“S-Sorry, would you prefer bacon or sausage?”

She jumped, turning wide-eyed towards him, caught red handed. “Eh…bacon,” she blurted.

He nodded and went back to his work, not appearing the least bit alarmed that she was nosing through his things.

“I can help,” she offered, crossing the room in only a few steps into the kitchen.

He shook his head. “Not necessary. Um…” He glanced over his shoulder from the eggs already solidifying in a pan on the stove to the narrow breakfast bar, crowded with mail and forgotten bits of this and that. “Would you clear us a spot? So sorry, but I live alone, and rarely have time or patience to sit and eat.”

He flushed at this statement for some reason, his gaze landing on her before jerking away again. 

She went about stacking the envelopes into a pile, her instincts getting the better of her as she peered at the return addresses scrawled on few, in the same tiny handwritten script.

 _Theseus Scamander_.

She blinked up to him, gazing curiously at the back of his head while assuring that his attention was consumed with cooking and not her snooping.

“Have you always lived in London?” she asked breezily, shoving the mail aside when the other envelopes proved only to be bills and other commonplace notices.

“My family is from Dorset. I went to University in Whales, and since then I have lived in half a dozen places outside the UK to conduct research. But I never stay anywhere too long. I’ve only held a permanent residence in London since last year.”

“Where did you live before?” She watched him put the kettle on and rummage through an overfull cabinet for a box of tea bags. She settled on one of the high stools set beneath the bar, the only modern pieces of furniture he possessed.

“Egypt, Peru, Brazil for a short time. Japan for a little over six months.”

“Wow.” She turned over her shoulder to gaze at the well-adorned map on the wall. “And you’ve been all those places too?”

He smiled sheepishly while plating their breakfast. “Yes. The colors correspond to a year. I’ve visited nearly a hundred countries conducting research, observing, interacting with the partners with which we share the world.”

“Animals,” she provided knowingly.

He grinned proudly up at her. “Yes.”

The kettle whistle cut through further conversation, and he turned to snap off the heat from the stove. He offered her a deep, plain porcelain teacup and went back to rummage for silverware before joining her on the opposite side of the counter.

“Speaking of, I have an errand to run this afternoon. Would you like to accompany me?”

“Sure,” she agreed, pulling the plate he offered towards herself, observing the wide hunks of bacon—unlike the crispy, puny little strips from home—and _beans_ which, she thought, were quite an odd thing to serve with breakfast.

“I hoped you would,” he muttered softly, seemingly to himself, and his ears were pink when she turned to look at him, tucking into his breakfast quickly to avoid further interaction.

She took up her fork, and decided after a few bites that perhaps beans weren’t so strange. For a nomadic bachelor he was actually a better cook than herself, which wasn’t saying much, but Queenie would be impressed. 

He allowed her to wash up, only assisting in stacking away the clean dishes. This chore done, they plotted a strategy for the day.

The weather was dry enough for the Tower of London, and despite the castle’s history, she found the setting rather calming. They circled the courtyard and outer walls several times, nearly elbow to elbow in the chill of late morning.

On their second round, she grew the courage to ask about the photos tacked up in his flat.

“That woman. Is that your mother?” she asked.

“Ah, yes.” He smiled when he said it, but despite the array of smiles he’d given, this one was the most pained, the most deflective. “ _Was…_ ” he whispered, his voice caught by a quick whip of wind.

“Oh. I’m so sorry…” she grappled, instantly guilty at having snooped at all. She floundered for a change of subject, staring down at their boots on the gravel path.

He shook his head, a quick flash of reddish curls, Adam’s apple bobbing at his throat. “I nosed into your affairs yesterday. Its only fair.”

They continued in silence a few more paces. “And the other boy is your brother?” she guessed, quieter and watching the solemn expression that had crossed over his features, cutting them to sharper lines and angles. 

“Yes. Still alive, much to my chagrin.”

It’s meant as a dry joke, but Tina doesn’t laugh. 

“And the other girl?” she chanced, something in her chest twinging oddly when she said it. It wasn’t her business—none of this was—but even so, the time they’d been spending together wasn’t purely platonic, and surely the both of them were aware enough to realize, even if it they’d only known each other for forty-eight hours at most.

“That’s no one,” he said, voice taking a sharp edge, somehow still making the effort to be gentle. “No one that need be spoken of now, at least.”

She left the subject to rest, carefully observing the way his shoulders drew straight and how his eyes churned emerald. She thought it interesting that as shy and out of touch as he could be, his expressions always told his heart, and in many depths. Some things, she suspected, he preferred to keep quiet to save the good from the bad. She wished for that sort of intrepid optimism.

They took lunch—fish and chips—and there, he gave her more information about his aforementioned errand.

It was only a half hour later that she found herself strolling through the beauties of Regent’s Park and into the bowels of the London Zoo.

The grounds were deserted, but surely there was someone somewhere guarding the place. Still, Newt marched on without a worry and she had no choice but to follow, pretending to be just as casual as he was, bee-lining behind him.

“Where is everybody?” she asked. “Where are the animals?”

“Maintenance,” he replied shortly as he took a path she was certain everyday patrons were never allowed to witness. Behind habitats and around corners to appear in front of some drab looking building marked _Rehabilitation_.

“Should we be here?” she hissed at his shoulder, peering back for any sign of other employees. She wondered briefly if he were even an employee himself, or if she should prepare for an arrest on charges of trespassing.

“I’m not supposed to have nonpersonnel on the premises,” he answered, unconcerned, glancing about half-heartedly while working at the key in the lock.

“Well that answers one of my questions,” she murmured dully, following him inside.

They entered a windowless room, flanked high with bales of dried grasses, potted trees and plants, empty buckets stacked atop a chest freezer. A row of dry-erase boards hung along the walls, scrawled in several different styles of handwritings, listing a daily schedule, mealtimes, playtimes, and diets. A tall storage cabinet stood against one wall, labeled in color-coded tapes. A refrigerator took the far corner, near a metal-topped table crowded underneath with first aid kits and all manner of medical supplies. An organized mess all crowded into the small space. It was all somehow more ordinary and humble than she’d expected.

At the far end of the room, a short hallway branched off for a pair of rooms, both bearing glasses-paned doors, unmarked.

Newt moved for the table near the refrigerator and set aside the backpack he’d been totting all morning to unpack the apples and bunch of bananas he’d purchased at the market before their breakfast. 

He ducked into the refrigerator, plucking an ordinary baby bottle from within, already filled with milk.

“Do you mind?” he said briefly, handing it over, not waiting for her reply before turning back to his work.

“What?” she gawked, grimacing at the thing as if it were some foreign object.

“Yes. You’ll feed the baby. I’ll take care of the others.”

“I’m sorry the what?” she repeated, but he was already pacing about, drawing a knife from some drawer or other, plucking a small pail from the cabinet, and setting about chopping the apples.

“The two-toed sloth,” he answered easily—as if she should’ve known. “She’s only a baby, but her mother couldn’t care for her, poor thing. We’ve got lemurs, too. Hop and Pop. They’re harmless, just a bit excitable, so do be careful.”

“Hop and Pop?” she echoed, entirely amused, still clutching the bottle while she watched him work, quick and precise.

“Animals that struggle to assimilate are brought to us. Mostly we work with ill or injured animals, or babies that are abandoned.”

“Are you…do you…what is it that you do, exactly?” she asked, not certain how to phrase it without falling short.

“The answer is a bit complicated,” he admitted, turning to her and taking up the full pail with a timid smile, just barely daring to meet her eyes before he made for the hallway.

Inside the first windowed room was a long shining table, lined in clear white linen, walls covered in seemingly endless cabinets, a surgical light planted tall of ghostly in the corner. It was all very clean and in order, a cold contrast to the rest of the place.

Through the second door, she could see a long length of mesh enclosures, the ceiling made as one large skylight to allow for plenty of natural light, trails of ivy streaked across it to suggest the idea of nature.

At the far end, a stunted, short-branched tree was planted and enclosed by thin caging, as if the entire structure of the building was designed around it. From its bare branches blinked two white-faced lemurs.

When Newt pushed open the door, the creatures leapt to cling at the cage, shrieking and cawing with anticipation.

“Yes. Hello, my dears. Mum’s here,” he said, and Tina noted his subtle change in posture as he led the way in.

Submissive and slow, his step rolled rather than jaunted towards the enclosure around the tree. He reached to free the padlock at the opening, shushing the still screeching creatures, and once there was room, the pair of them skirted out to encircle his shoulders. 

“Hello, hello. Alright, settle down now please. I’ve brought a new friend, and we must make a good impression.”

One of the pair reached for the pail in Newt’s hand, chirping excitedly.

“No need to be so greedy, Hop,” Newt chided gently, bending to his knees, lemurs still encircling his head and then scaling down his arm as if it were a branch, mincing impatiently.

He offered a bit of apple to both and they nibbled happily, little lips smacking and little hands working to reach and grab for more.

Tina was certain she was doe-eyed, smiling down on the whole display before she joined Newt at their level.

“They’re so sweet…” she breathed, laughing at the way the smaller one, Pop, waited patiently for the next bit of fruit to be offered to him while Hop overturned the bucket in eagerness.

“Little buggers, they are,” said Newt, stroking at Pop’s head with the back of his forefinger. “Pop was quite ill for a while, and Hop wouldn’t stand for being away from him. They’ll be moved to their usual habitat soon.”

He offered her a bit of apple, which she held out for Hop to take. He sniffed at her fingers briefly, looking up with his round eyes to observe her, to test her. Satisfied that she was indeed friendly, he took the fruit, wrapping his tiny hands over hers while he nibbled.

She laughed, soft and thin. When she looked back to Newt to share the moment, his eyes were wide like the very creatures before them, dedicated and absorbed in her and only her. 

She felt her chest tighten, and she fought the urge to duck her own face away from him, out from under the intense, untempered query he always possessed. She tried to match him, to rise to the occasion of their little game of demonstrative glances they’d taken up since the beginning. But he was first.

Something like the break of a new idea twitched over his features and was gone, replaced with something distant and dark that he didn’t give her time to read, attention turned back to Pop who was climbing at his shirt front to be held, and she looked back down to Hop, who was clawing eagerly at her hand for more food.

They sat in silence, Hop munching the remains of the apple from Tina’s fingers, Newt silently stewing and petting Pop’s silky fur.

Once there were no more treats to be had, Newt wordlessly stood from his spot and prepared to tuck the lemurs back into their enclosure. 

Pop mewled, scuttling about Newt’s shoulders in protest.

“Now, now. No crying. I’ve had a cuddle, haven’t I? We’ve got other friends to attend to,” Newt chided, motherly. Both brothers went inside with only a minute more of their protestations, clinging at the thin caging, and he slipped the lock back into its place with careful and slow fingers, turning to her and looking no less distressed than he had before.

She plucked up the bottle from where she’d left it on the concrete floors. “Now this?” she asked, hesitantly, trying to break whatever tension he’d created for himself. He jerked a nod, gave a tic of a smile as he stepped forward to pass her.

He reached up for one of the smaller, simpler enclosures that lined the wall, untangled the lock, and used both hands to lift a tiny, round ball of brown fur curled against a stuffed teddy bear.

Something immediately alighted in her chest at the sight of this creature, a little face squished with wide-set eyes and a long snout, and a tiny mouth working at the empty air until a little cry sounded, high and squealing.

Newt shushed it tenderly, shifting to cradle both the bear and the baby sloth as if he were holding an infant in the crook of his arm. 

He nodded to her, cueing her to come forward.

“Do I just…” she started, holding the baby bottle aloft, tipping it slightly, doubtfully.

“Point the teat downward, keep it lower…yes, just like that…” He mentored, and Tina breathed a sigh of surprise when the little creature took the teat instinctively, sucking eagerly for such a little thing.

“This is Polly,” he supplied, keeping his voice low. “She’s new, only about seven weeks old. We like to give the babies teddies to simulate a mother, and eventually we’ll hang it from the top of her enclosure so she can climb it and build her strength.”

Tina knew she was positively beaming now, stepping closer to better angle the bottle as Polly emptied it, her bulging eyes peering at Tina in interest.

“This is amazing, Newt, truly…” she said, reaching to touch the animal’s tiny head with her free hand, not bothering to feel embarrassed at how the new contact put her in even closer proximity to him.

She glanced up to him, decidedly making eye contact, imploring him to meet her. 

“Thank you for showing me this.”

“Thank you for being willing…” he said, unblinking, still strangely serious even as the green in his eyes dipped to emerald. “Technically...” he began with a breath, and a quick glance to Polly when she chirred contentedly.

“Technically I’m considered a consultant to this institute. At one time, I was their rainforest curator, but my research led to me other interests. While I’m not on staff, I’m still welcomed to use the facilities and study here. Which is why we’re here at a quiet time; I like to remain unseen, conduct my research and interactions quietly without disturbing the routine of the day. It is better this way. But it is difficult to stay away from the small ones, the ones that need the most attention.”

Polly burrowed against his chest, and Tina smiled in adoration, lowering the half-empty bottle.

“I can see why that would be a challenge. They’re fond of you.”

His cheeks flushed and he nodded a silent thank you, turning back to tuck Polly’s gangly limbs against the teddy where she was now pillowed in an easy sleep. He placed her once again in her enclosure and with one last goodbye to the lemurs, they made their exit.

He took a moment to document the feedings on one of the white boards outside in a spindly, flourishing script.

It was dusk once they exited the gate, the evening chilled and crisp, peaceful even as the city churned and lit itself for the evening.

Tina kept pace beside him, following beside him as if it always had been. When he asked if she’d like to retire to her hotel, she shook her head, reached for his elbow, and off his wide-eyed gawp, suggested tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys like my OCs (Original Creatures, see what I did there?). They're pretty adorable, if I do say so myself. Well...I'm thinking this is going to be 5 chapters in length, with maybe a few more one-shots and spin-offs around it, because their backstories are becoming very clear in my head, but there will be more animals, and more...exotic locales...to come and within those one-shots once they're put together.


	4. Chapter 4

“We haven’t discussed _your_ profession, Miss Goldstein,” he pointed out sweetly once they were settled on the aged sofa in his flat, with mugs of steaming tea clutched between their hands and a polite distance between them.

She shifted, angling to lean her back against the arm of the sofa. He eyed her socked feet, now planted on the cushion beside him.

“I’m a police officer. I am…well I _was_ about to be promoted before I left. I doubt it’ll happen now…or if I’ll even be guaranteed a place when I go back home.”

She stared down into the dark, rich expanse of her tea. While she’d already made up her mind on this trip and its necessity, leaving behind a career that she had worked for nearly her entire life still issued certain amounts of guilt and uncertainty. It had been many years since she saw her work as a way to make a buck. That mindset had ceased the moment she’d entered the Academy, and was a bitter reminder of her old self by the time she took the Oath of Honor. There had been years where they’d just gotten by, but becoming an officer was an investment of her character into the society she’d felt so robbed by. If she couldn’t bend the ideals of the world, she could at least make a small influence. She could at least become the example of rising above what the world had seen; an orphan with the burden of a little sister that wouldn’t amount to much else.

She hadn’t been worried to leave. Perhaps there had been a few weeks of hesitation once she’d made her mind up, but she’d never been the kind to dally too long on something she wanted. Life was too short, she’d learned that early on. The hesitating told her this was right, and eventually she’d seized it.

But now balanced between the sensibility she’d always known and sitting on this battered sofa in London with a man she’d only just come to know, and the months of unknowns ahead of her, she wasn’t sure exactly where she stood. But it was the issue she’d traveled all this way to resolve in the first place.

“What caused you to give it up?” he asked, fidgeting at the spoon in the sugar bowl on the battered coffee table.

He had seemed to wind down marginally since their return to the flat, especially when he cut her a teasing smile when she’d asked him to set a tray with tea and biscuits. She didn’t want to stain this lovely evening with a sour note, but if he was asking...

“It’s a long story,” she said simply. When silence proved that he was patiently waiting for her to gather her words, she made to continue. “I told you my sister and I grew up in foster care… Well…” The sofa creaked when she adjusted, fruitlessly stalling.

“I was asked to respond to a call on a noise complaint. I knew this lady was already on our radar, so I probably overstepped a few boundaries, _was_ a bit too forceful. But…”

She blinked at the already threatening sting in her eyes, and took an audible breath that made Newt’s eyes sharpen and widen.

“I shoved my way upstairs and one of the boys, Credence, about sixteen years old… He was all bruised up, and his sister was curled in the corner. She’d seen the whole thing. It was awful…”

She rubbed at her face with her sleeve, bereft of his handkerchief this time. “It was awful the way he looked at me like… he was so desperate to be taken away. I’d wished dozens of time for someone to save me—save us—like that. And even though I was an officer now, I had no power to do anything. The kids were removed, but not for very long once she’d convinced the State nothing was amiss. I honestly don’t know how she did it but…It was clear to me after that that nobody _cared_ what those kids were going through. What was happening to Credence, and where he’d be left after all this. They want laws to give an idea of justice, but…”

She shook her head, blinking up at his deep cut frown.

“You did the right thing,” he murmured after a beat.

She scoffed, gripping her mug fiercely. “I didn’t do anything. Those kids are right back where they were, probably forgotten by now.”

“Not by you,” he said, focused intensely on the teapot on the table before them. “Truth always makes its mark, even if not how we’d like.”

His gaze was liquid and vibrant green when he lifted his face back to her, and her breath caught audibly in her chest at the dim glint of tears in his own eyes.

“I…” She faltered, blinking back down to her hands. “I wish I could do that.”

“What?”

“Always see the best. Hope for it, even. You’re…” She swallowed at the clamp of an all new emotion in her throat. Something frightening and too big, too wild. “You’re really amazing,” she managed, shying away from whatever it was, shoving it away even as some measure of guilt for not initiating it rose within her.

“It’s a destructive habit. Not everyone is so persuaded by it.” It’s mumbled down into his half-empty teacup. “I’m not one for comparing ghosts, and I know you aren’t either. I don’t mean to ask you to reveal things you wish to keep private…”

His gaze was steady, matched to hers. Her fingertips buzzed suddenly with the urge to reach out and touch him, stroke the blotch of freckles along his cheek, but before she could process the thrill that the mere _idea_ of touching him gave, he turned away.

“That’s alright…” she murmured, filling the empty space.

He squared his shoulders, angling himself more fully towards her. “My mother died not very long ago…” His voice was flat, tempered, eyes working at the threadbare rug beneath their feet. Immediately, she guessed at what kind of attempt this was.

Instinctively, almost defensively, she shifted back, refusing to look up from her cup. “You really don’t have to do this…” she breathed.

But his fingers found her wrist, imploring, pressing earnestly, inching to pry her palm away from the warm porcelain and fold it against his own. He gave a measured squeeze before continuing.

“I was about to enter University. My brother…”

“Theseus…” she croaked.

He blinked up at her narrowly, brows drawing together in silent question.

“I…saw his name in the stack of mail this morning,” she admitted, a little sheepish, but his expression cleared and he seemed mildly relieved at not needing to explain.

“Theseus was nearly finished. She’d been ill for about a year, but everyone wanted to look past it as though it wasn’t our reality. Even Father, the most hard-nosed of us all.”

There was a beat, and he took an audible swallow.

His thumb twitched at her knuckles, then pressed firmly. Tina got the idea he wasn’t just holding her hand for comfort’s sake. He _needed_ , _wanted_ her to listen. 

“The girl you saw in the photo. Her name was Leta. She was…many things to me. Oftentimes a best friend. Sometimes much less friendly. Sometimes…more. We met when I was thirteen. Father had insisted on enrolling me in a boarding school for challenging students when it became clear that a typical education wasn’t suited for me. I never did anything wrong, just…” He gave a shrug. “I wasn’t Theseus. I wasn’t as sociable as he was, I daydreamed. I wasn’t athletic. I was different, and my father couldn’t figure out what to do with that. Not a child who mirrored the wild spirit in his wife that he’d tried so patiently over twenty years to stifle.”

His palm twisted, turning to twine their fingers, and Tina cleared her throat against a new, uncomfortable tightness. She stared, eyes following the line of his slender fingers, concentrating hard as he continued.

“We sort of...fell into friendship. I’ll admit, I thought she was very pretty, but more than that, she cared for nature in the same way I did. She saw its importance, its sanctity. We spent a lot of time escaping the grounds to explore. It was the first time I thought that anybody outside of my family could actually relate to me. It sounds juvenile now…”

“No it doesn’t…” Tina urged, finding herself taken aback when she gave his hand a squeeze.

Newt took a long breath.

“She was never an easy person to get along with. I adored her in every way, but it was always a different mood with her. She couldn’t decide if she was vehemently hated by most everyone, or secretly revered; either way, it was always to do with her. Everything was. I admit that I was both blinded by how duplicitous she was and driven to somehow remedy her fragility. Our relationship strained more and more as we grew older, but we never explicitly parted ways. I think she knew exactly how helpless I was for her company…

“So when Mother died, I asked Leta to attend the funeral by my side, and she agreed. I didn’t…I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to face the two of them, my brother and father, and _her_ …like that…Well, it wasn’t much of a surprise when she didn’t show, but it was a clear indication of where I stood.

“I have seen her here and there since then; we briefly studied together in Whales, but we moved in different circles, and I’m not entirely sure she completed her degree. She was there, then she wasn’t. I have never specifically sought her out since that day, and she has never approached me, nor offered apologies.”

His palm turned, fingers unwinding and stroking at the back of her hand in a gesture that made her chest ache.

“I’ve thought for awhile that perhaps it was easier, better even, to detach oneself from people. I understood animals in a way I could never seem to connect with people… Their needs are so much more simple, and their souls, if you’d like to call them such, aren’t dependent on others. But you, Tina… _you_...”

His story fell away, and she became fiercely aware of her heart hammering against her chest, hard enough to choke her. She blinked away the prick of tears all over again when she finally rallied the courage to peer up at him, his jaw was set firm, observing her with his bright, dutiful gaze.

“You were something...someone...entirely different,” he managed. She let herself bear the weight of his gaze for a second more, then tried a smile, but it felt stupid and flat. She turned, reaching to place her mug onto the table, but his hard, calloused fingertips caught her cheek. 

Her gasp was loud and sharp in the quiet room, and once again she was wide eyed and exposed under his ardent watch. He sustained the connection for a moment longer before turning away himself, his hand slipping uselessly to the space between them. 

“I’m sorry if all of that was...forward, or unwarranted, or…”

She didn’t think, didn’t let him finish the thought before closing the distance and pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth, the best kiss she could manage at this angle.

She held their proximity, her exhale shaky and warm against his cheek, waiting, waiting until he turned and finally met her, There was the sweetness of tea and cream in his taste. The scratch of stubble at her chin, and then the fast press of his fingers against her scalp.

He stroked at the loose wave of her hair, pulling back to train his eyes to hers, and for the umpteenth time she floundered under the weight of him. The fluttering glances, she guessed, were gone, and her reward was the entreating, jarring press of a green gaze held only for her.

“This is crazy…” she choked, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Yes,” he answered, hand wandering to just catch the roots of her hair at the nape of her neck before anchoring there.

Again they met one another, finding an angle and learning one another. Her tongue darted out helplessly to flick against his teeth, and he groaned, shifting impossibly closer, pressing the weight of himself against her.

She grasped at the front of his button down, wrinkled from the jumper he’d worn over it earlier, and his hand met hers, pressing her palm to his chest, an action that made her heart clench.

His lips dipped to her jaw, the line of her neck, and she couldn’t hold back the urgent whimper of his name. 

“Tina…” he echoed, leveling his eyes back to hers.

The green in his eyes had been crowded to strokes of deep emerald under a line of jagged reddish fringe, and an unexpected smile crossed her face at the state of him.

He mirrored her, chuckling thinly against her shoulder. “This _is_ crazy,” he repeated.

She answered in a watery little laugh before arching to kiss his cheek again, demanding attention and welcoming it openly when his mouth returned to hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit outtake [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10747404) as a continuation of this chapter, for those of you who would like to read. I HIGHLY encourage it, as there is a lot of character development going on even around the smuttiness.
> 
> [@allscissorsallpaper](https://allscissorsallpaper.tumblr.com) on tumblr :)


	5. Chapter 5

The room took an unfamiliar though not uncomfortable shape, somehow larger in the morning light. Broader, airy, filled with the golden streaks of morning, sovereign and secluded from the hum of the city outside. Tentacles of plants soaked in the sunrise on the windowsill. The comforter was pulled under her chin and their feet pressed together at the end of the mattress, keeping from the cold. He still slept solidly, turned away from her with his back pressed to her chest, so that she was eye level with the cluster of freckles on his shoulder blade. 

Her muscles protested when she shifted her arm from his waist and the shoddy bed frame squeaked marginally. 

She wasn’t sure where exactly to fit the evening’s events in her mind. Even now, waking like this next to him, she could count this as entirely different from any of her previous encounters. She was always first to wake, first to leave, sneaking through the door and hoping to be remembered only as an afterthought, a waft of stale vodka on a different man’s breath. She had considered--had always known, of course, by nature of the act--that there was more to be found in such things than hard, visceral indulgences that only balmed and barely touched the heart. But then, she’d rather have it that way. She had left the romance and charm to Queenie years ago, finding her own methods suited to leaving her just this side of satisfied and secure with no emotion left to mince about with.

But never had she felt the break of something divine, something larger, something that encompassed and sought to _know_ her, to call her out, in the way she’d found beside _him_. 

Never had she wanted to _stay_. To remain here in the curve of him.

He didn’t seem worried, didn’t seem mindful of the baggage she brought, of the secrets and stories she’d shored up over the years to build her walls with, all spilled at his feet in just two days. He took it with patience, all while opening his own world to her as if this were the completely _natural_ and most reasonable response. 

It was Polly that had done it. The funny-faced, lanky little thing. Unbroken and soft and sweet, causing something to shift in her chest that had been dormant too long. Watching him there, with the creatures he cared for and considered himself bonded to, let her not only observe his indelible kindness, but entertain the idea that she could partake of it without recompense.

Again, the prickle of something unknown and unclassified caught through her chest and she blinked at a new sting in her eyes.

She was too wise to believe in soul mates, love at first sight, or any of those silly ideals. And this was none of that. It was its own brand of magic altogether, wild and untamed and unlearned. She wasn’t sure what to call it, what label to give, and perhaps it didn’t warrant one at all. She _did_ know that whatever the direction, she was helpless to quell the flow of it.

She leaned to press her lips against the patch of freckles, not really hoping to wake him, just idly cataloging him, memorizing the shades and angles of him to hold this too, together with her other ideations, for later. 

His steady, soft snores stuttered, switching to a long, full intake of breath. He gave a groan, only sounding mildly disrupted before he tensed under her and shifted a hand over hers at his stomach.

“Morning,” he slurred, only half awake.

“Hi,” she mumbled against the skin between his shoulder blades. 

He burrowed into her, letting himself be held for a moment before turning and facing her, the tangle of the bedspread hitching up off his hip.

“You’re here,” he murmured, tucking his face into her bare chest brazenly, giving her a full view of his bronzy curls. 

She thumbed through them with slow fingers, while he laved sleepily at her skin. She had a feeling he wasn’t just commenting on her presence the morning after, and the idea made her throat clutch.

“Yes…” she managed, working hard at not giving herself away, equally as astonished.

Her stomach suddenly growled, loud and ardent between them, and they laughed together.

He leaned up to kiss the underside of her chin, shimmying to her cheek. He pressed a kiss at her forehead, her temple, the hinge of her jaw, prying them both to some sense of wakefulness. 

“Not a late sleeper are you?” she teased, burrowing into the blanket, into _him_. “Don’t you know Sundays are for staying in bed?”

It was peripheral to anything else on her mind, but Newt purred at her statement all the same, nipping at her neck. “I prefer begin my work early.” His words were just as innocent, but his tone twice as heated, and he hitched his weight up and over her again.

He hummed, stroking a lock of hair behind her ear. She let him trace her, fingers on her neck, her breast, her hip, observing her now in the dim light of morning, letting herself be beheld and marveled at, a new feeling but one made easy by his careful gaze.

“Go back to sleep,” he said softly, his hand finding her cheek again. “There’s a bakery across the street. I can be back in five minutes.” He made to pull from their embrace, and she hummed her discontent, grasping for his shoulders to hold him there.

“Mmmm…” she mumbled, either in bliss or dissent or sleepiness, she wasn’t sure. “Five minutes.”

“Yes. Blueberry or raspberry?” 

“Doesn’t matter. Coffee?”

“I’ll try,” he laughed into her collarbone.

“Hurry…” She closed her eyes and tucked back against the mattress.

“Yes, Miss Goldstein,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead and lifting himself from the bed.

She listened as he milled about through the bedroom, gathering his shed clothes from the floor, before the thud of field boots on hardwood stairs signaled his departure.

It might’ve been five minutes, or ten, she wasn’t sure and would never know, for she’d dozed off, thinking again of Polly and her keen eyes, until the heady scent of black coffee smoked through the room. They took their breakfast in bed, sitting face to face with matching mussed hair and stealing sated, admiring glances. 

“I’d like to write today,” he said, halfway through a cherry danish. “I don’t want to impede your time here, so feel free to strike out on your own. I’ll probably barricade myself in a bookshop somewhere.”

“You aren't impeding me. I'd like to watch you work.”

He looked both bashful and quietly thrilled by that, darting his eyes to her under ragged fringe.

“I would like to get my sister a present, though, at some point. Could you help me mail it back to her?”

“Certainly. That's a simple errand. The English postal service is exponentially more efficient than the United States’,” he said easily, not catching her wry smile from where he stared at the crust of his danish.

The sun had peeked bright and golden over the sill of the window, setting his hair to redder tones and his eyes to turquoise. She stared, considering how sacred it must be to see him like this, bedheaded and still in yesterday’s clothes.

“I’d like to shower, before we head out,” she said easily, shifting the sheets where they were snug over her chest.

“Oh?” he blinked, then gave her a knowing smirk.

“Not that!’ she laughed. “Well...not _now_...”

He nodded to himself. “Maybe later,” he murmured, still grinning boyishly while she shuffled from the bed.

She made no response, instead giving a full stretch, arching tall and lean, certain that he was watching. She gave him one chaste kiss before plucking her jeans from the floor with a calculated dip and ducked into the bathroom, not before stealing a look to him and catching the sight of his tongue rolling across his lips.

-O-

She found a postcard, glossed with a photograph Queenie might like: the wide expanse of the London skyline at dusk, painted in smoky blues and hazy pinks, the Thames curving through the center. 

She hesitated at the message for far too long, jotting: _Queenie, Safe. Doing Fine._

She glanced out the shop window, to where Newt stood on the pavement, shoulders back against the glass and hands in his coat pockets, inconspicuously watching passing pedestrians. His yellow and black scarf caught the ceaseless city wind like a banner, tassels tangling.

She smiled, just a quirk at the corner of her mouth before returning her attention to her postcard. She twisted the shopkeep’s let pen in her fingers.

_Very happy. -T_

-O-

Days later, she remembered the Eurostar ticket for Paris stuffed in the front pocket of her carry-on bag, stamped for two mornings hence. 

They’d been entirely inseparable for the past week, and she felt a little sorry about the money she’d spent on the hotel she’d only spent a week’s worth of nights in, during the entirety of her two-week stay. 

In this time, they’d visited the zoo nearly every day to play and give treats. She’d even managed to make good friends with the giraffes, whom Newt insisted were typically vain and taciturn creatures. 

He’d taken her to Oxford, to tour the cathedral of a university, and to stroll the countryside, where he kissed her in the shade of an ivy covered cottage along the river. She thought, while his thumb cradled her jaw and his palm drew her in even closer, that perhaps this was a place she could get used to. A gentle, unhurried hamlet with rolling hills and perfumed in the fragrance of green grass (or was that him?). 

She observed him work in his favored bookshop, their table stacked in thick textbooks and her unpurchased copy of _East of Eden_ , which was neglected in favor of watching his creased brow and sharp eyes and the unpausing pace of his fingers on keys. She decided immediately then and there, that she could’ve died happy when he pushed the screen towards her and whispered under tangled fringe, “Could you read this? Tell me what you think...”

And still in all this, the looming date on her ticket came closer.

It arrived in the form of a too-bright day, with too few clouds. He wore his blue coat despite the warmer weather, and rolled her suitcase for her on his own insistence. The train station was deserted, automated messages playing from the overhead PA, and she could not help but feel the clutch of irony at the setting. 

A silent, slow lunch of curry and rice and warm naan made them late, now with little time to spare on goodbyes and the things she wished she could wrap her mind around, not later when he was further away and gone. When the uncertainty of ever seeing him again had inevitably set in.

She rolled on the balls of her feet at the platform, trying to tamp down the gripping in her chest, the stinging in her nose, wishing now for the embroidered handkerchief she’d stowed in the inner pocket of her luggage.

“I want to thank you,” he said, blinking to the generic tiled flooring, hand clenching and unclenching around the handle of her bag.

She shrugged a shoulder. “I should be thanking you. I didn’t do anything.”

Out of all the looks he had set her with, the one he leveled to her now caught her heart, tugged and refused to release.

“You did,” he said, keeping her gaze for a moment before his blonde lashes fluttered again. “You did,” he repeated, his smile a wash of things she could not read, was not privy to. Things she would think on later.

“Newt…” she said, her voice too pitched for her liking, so she paused to steady herself, and he filled the gap with another wide-eyed, viridian stare. There were dozens of things she could’ve spoken, could’ve told him, _wanted_ him to know. She sighed, too choked to allow herself the risk of words. But he understood, and watched only a moment more with a knowing smile before reaching up to tuck a loose strand of chestnut hair behind her ear.

The slow, rolling traction played between them, but they silently and mutually ignored it for last looks, final memories.

A final call made them both leap apart, and Newt fumbled in his pocket for a cell phone, years out of date, holding it out to her.

“Its a rather banal thing to ask, but I’d like to keep in touch. Please.”

She tapped her number into the keypad, didn’t type a name for herself, and passed it back. “I have to go.”

“Yes.” His eyes wouldn’t meet hers, staring behind her into the tinted windows of the train before blinking to his shoes and he retreated a step, initiating distance.

She reached for her suitcase, and turned. 

The few feet onto the train seemed a mile, and all at once her vision blurred and she spun for him again, frozen at her spot while he fumbled with the pockets of his coat, shifted foot to foot, mouth a thin and solid line of unreadable reservation. His eyes flicked up to her, surprise and confusion narrowing there when he saw she had yet to board.

She crossed to him again, catching him in open arms, suitcase abandoned. He caught her, clutching her close as her boots stumbled clumsily over themselves.

His hand traced at the wave of her hair, and she did not let herself feel ashamed for the tears she left on the shoulder of his coat. She squeezed, tight, tight, too tight but he did not protest, pressing a hand at the dip of her back, into her thin wool jacket.

Without another glance, she made for the train in three hurried strides, jumping the gap and hauling her suitcase into one of the bins designated by the other passengers’ luggage. All in one decided and resigned breath, she found her seat and yanked the book from her bag, gripping at its binding for something of purchase, staring resolutely at the seat in front of her until the train smoothed forward, faster, faster, out of the tunnel into the sunlit day.

-O-

With the help of a native, bantering in broken English and eleven-years-stale high school French, Tina found her route to her accommodations: a cheap Air BNB, a studio with a lofted bed, squeezed between the crush of the rest of the city like it’d been afterthought.

She explored, losing herself in bustling neighborhoods, learning their idiosyncrasies, busying herself until dusk came and she was hungry enough for dinner on her own.

She ate, attempting to reset her mind to some easy strain, some thread of thought unburdened by green eyes and bronze hair, fingers on laptop keys, kisses and tattoos.

She asked for dessert, coffee, anything to keep her out and occupied. She paused at the right bank of the Seine, observing the Eiffel Tower when it was set in glinting white at the stroke of the hour.

Typically, she was good at being alone. Or at least being lonely. That was one thing she hadn’t worried about in regards to this trip. As much as she tried against it she was forced to face the fact that she was not good at sequestering her emotions and even worse at separating them from her actions. Graves and Queenie would agree. But loneliness didn’t bother her--she’d grown up with it, partnered in it with Queenie who’d risen out of it. 

It was fine. It was a fact. But the more she gave thought to it, the more she wasn’t sure if she wanted to limit herself to what always had been for safety’s sake.

She grasped her phone in her pocket, mashing furiously at the buttons til it glowed to life, bearing a notice of a new message from an unsaved number, two initials typed into the body.

She swiped it away, finding a different contact entirely and lifting the phone to her ear, something springing loose in her chest when the familiar voice and it's warm, honeyed accent answered in kind.

“Queenie…? Hi....I’m fine. Yeah, everything’s...great. Hey listen, I have a question to ask you...”

-O-

At the tip of the Eiffel Tower, she could see the curvature of the Earth. But at the window of a cafe, she could watch pedestrians and buskers and artists outside, peddling handpainted postcards and watercolored landscapes.

This portion of town, scrolled out along hills, slanting and cobbled, was a contrast to the busy, posh districts, and she found that it was easy to fit, easier to blend in here. 

She stirred absently at her coffee, book in one hand, elbow on the table. But she had given up on actually absorbing what she was reading three pages ago.

She watched a family outside, settling in a crowded line along a bench at the edge of the square, each with some form of ice cream or pastry clutched in their hands. The eldest boy, maybe ten, bent to drop a pinch of sweet bread for the huddling pigeons. She smiled to herself, watching as he sank to one knee amongst them, and neither parent made to scold him or pull him away. 

She jumped at the buzz in her pocket, fumbling to reach and find her phone, answering without a glance at the ID.

“Hello?”

“Tina? Hello. What’re you doing right now?” Newt’s voice was thinner and hollow in the crackle of the speaker, but no less recognizable.

“Having coffee,” she answered easily. 

“Alright. Where?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Where exactly are you?”

“Um. Somewhere in Montmartre.”

“Perfect. Wait there.”

“What?” 

There was a scuffle, maybe a laugh. A loud garbled, crackle. 

“Please just wait for me there.”

“Wait for _you_? What are you…?” But the line was dead, and she could only make to blink at her phone in confusion, sliding it face down to the surface of the table. 

With some level of hesitation, she flagged down a waitress and asked for a second mug of coffee, then shook her head, asked for tea instead. As if she knew, as if she’d seen the same play of events before, the waitress smiled.

The tea was cold and oversteeped by the time he arrived, blustering into the cafe with a worsted, ancient leather suitcase at his side, hair a bronze wind-swept halo. 

He gave a harried look about the place before setting sight on her, and strode decidedly for table in three pronouncing steps. He stopped there militarily, mouth open in what he’d probably planned to say, free hand trembling visibly at his side.

“Tina,” he started, her name emphatic on his lips, even as his gaze made to avoid her. 

“I think…” He paused, pressed his lips together, gave a measured breath through flared nostrils, widened his eyes in frustration, and began once more. 

“I think the both of us are wise enough to understand exactly what we’ve gotten ourselves into,” he said without pretense. “And I’ll not apologize for being the first to say aloud that I _don’t_ wish to precipitate its end. The gift of your company is… What I mean to say is... “ Another pause. “I’d be honored if you’d grant me privilege of accompanying you on the rest of your journey, for as long as you’ll allow me. I’ve brought my manuscript, any resources I’ll need to write, and...well...I don’t think either of us have a mind to decide on an end, and so perhaps there can be a start. Something _like_ a start. If that’s what you’d like…”

He drew a breath, looking dizzied and spent, and his eyes were that boyish green again when he met her gaze.

“I’d like that,” she managed through a swell of something equal-parts endeared and delighted sticking at her throat.

-O-

“Your sister? I think that’s a lovely idea.”

“You say that now,” Tina said, making room for his suitcase next to hers. “She’s a handful.” She gripped at a set of pajamas, glancing to where he was curled along the length of the cramped sofa, draped in a fresh blanket she’d found in the linen closet, his favored yellow and black socks poking beneath its edge.

“I didn’t know that we’d...Well, I didn’t expect to _see_ you again. Not like this.” She tossed a gesture to the space between them. “I guess I realized that going it alone wasn’t as great as I thought it’d be. I wanted to share this with someone.”

He nodded in understanding. “I’m glad.” His smile was warm, proud, and then it was her turn to flush and glance away. “I have no qualms about it, if you don’t.”

She’d decided, that night at the river, to make amends to her itinerary and call on Queenie, reinvesting the money she’d saved for the next leg of the journey into a last-minute plane ticket, cutting the intended time of her trip in half but altogether certain this was right when Queenie had practically jumped at the chance.

“I know she’ll love it here,” she said, unafraid to shed her long sleeved top for her pajamas, right there before his watching eyes while she went on. “She needs this, too. As much as I did. She’s always been the romantic out of the two of us.”

He smiled in acknowledgement. “I’m thrilled to meet her. Only...we’ll have to arrange for different accommodations in our next destination,” he said, shifting against the creaking couch. “I don’t want to impose or make her uncomfortable.” 

He grew silent, his expression thoughtful in the slanted silver of streetlight when she crossed to perch next to him at the edge. “Perhaps it is better if I…”

“No…” she insisted. “I _want_ you with me. She’ll understand, I promise. She’ll love you.”

Some distant introspection crossed his face, and she didn’t get a chance to read it before it disappeared. She didn’t try and draw it out of him, letting him keep it for himself for a later, slower day. Instead, she stroked the line of his jaw with tender fingertips, coaxing a smile and returning it.

“You could sleep with me if you wanted. It might be your last chance.” She didn’t intended on anything more than sleep, but a teasing glint sparked in his eyes and she grinned at the suggestion.

He leaned up to kiss her, letting the blanket slip away forgotten, and climbed behind her to the lofted single bed, tucking her in beside him and fitting so easily against her side that she decided, just before sleep claimed her, that this _something_ that had been stirring in her chest, coming to life in all its many forms, was the feeling of home.


	6. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

-

Queenie was set to arrive a week into Tina’s scheduled two week stopover in Paris. She’d told her that Newt would accompany her to the airport, and fielded a slew of questions about _just what the hell she’d been up to_ and _she’d just known sending her off on her own would only lead to something as crazy as this_.

They took coffee and scones in a cafe much too posh and too modern for Newt’s brown corduroys and Tina’s slouchy trench coat, not bothering to feel uncomfortable under the waitress’s pinched expression, before dipping into the dusty Metro to meet her at the airport. 

She met them at baggage claim, bouncing blonde curls, skirt fluttering at her knees and giggle already echoing through the wide hollow of the vicinity, and it wasn’t until she was closer that Tina realized her laughter was directed _at_ someone. Namely the portly, dark haired man alongside her.

She turned to speak, still too far away to hear, and the man chuckled in kind, gave an enraptured nod.

“Queenie!” Tina called, instinctively planting her hands at her hips. The pair of them blinked at her, and Tina took the opportunity to throw an even glare at the man while Queenie bustled over to them.

“Teenie! Hi!” She released the handle of her suitcase, setting upright to wrap her arms around her sister. Tina returned the hug, but quirked a warning eyebrow at the stranger, now casually shifting foot to foot at a polite distance.

Newt blundered a moment, a greeting stuttering at his lips until Queenie embraced him too, giving a tight squeeze and wringing out his mumbled ‘oh...er...hello...nice to meet you.’

The blonde turned again towards her companion, beckoning him forward even as he eyed Tina with nearly comic suspicion.

“This is Jacob. We were on the same flight. But we got our luggage mixed up at the carousel, didn’t we honey? Teenie, he bakes! He’s got himself a spot at one of the schools here. Isn’t that great?!”

Jacob’s wariness seemed to naturally subside to some semblance of inbuilt, easy confidence, and he stepped forward to grasp Tina’s hand in a firm shake. “Hi. Jacob Kowalski,” he managed before giving a friendly nod and an attempt at a hopeful, endeavoring smile.

“Nice to meet you,” Tina reciprocated dryly, turning to give a pointed look at Newt, smiling doe-eyed behind her. He gave a shrug, and she supposed at this point it was pointless to discredit the kismet of propitious meetings and crossing paths.

She slid her hand into his, and the quartet made their exit into the sunny afternoon. Newt and Jacob fall into easy conversation about pastries and school and the mundanity of international travel, and Tina thought she had never heard him speak so many words in one period of time. She relayed to Queenie stories of Big Ben and the zoo, and Polly. Somewhere along the way someone suggested dinner, and then drinks, and they didn’t disband for the evening until the streets filtered to empty and the lamplights burned yellow and only then did they part ways with easy laughter, full and happy for the timely, unforseen bridging of their company, like colored strings pinned across maps.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt from the [@dailyau](http://dailyau.tumblr.com) blog on Tumblr: "Made small talk while waiting for different flights and assumed we’d never see each other again."
> 
> ( [@allscissorsallpaper](http://allscissorsallpaper.tumblr.com) on Tumblr )

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rainy Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162022) by [KatieHavok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieHavok/pseuds/KatieHavok)




End file.
